A different upload approach

[chaosblade]

If you run only one torrent at a time, maybe. But not everyone (especially those with lower-end broadband) can afford to run only one torrent - for example i always keep one torrent seeding while another downloads.

[Klaus_1250]

OK, but that still is not a problem. 1KB/s is really not much (in fact, most people still consider 1KB/s per uploadslot still way to low)! And you can reduce the number of upload-slots for seeding torrents to something like 2. So two torrents on a 128kbs upload-connection is not a problem (though it is the absolute max). I don't mind if people with lower-end broadband connections upload less or slower, but there should be a reasonable limit somewhere.

[Switeck]

But not everyone (especially those with lower-end broadband) can afford to run only one torrent - for example i always keep one torrent seeding while another downloads.

ALL the more reason to enforce a 1 KB/sec per upload slot.

On Torrents I'm seeding I often reduce their upload slots to only 1 or 2 and sometimes set a fixed amount of upload bandwidth for them as well.

...If only µTorrent could do all that for me.

It's better to get out a few complete chunks as a seed than pieces of many chunks.

On downloads that aren't finished, I've found I don't get tit-for-tat download speeds from people I'm uploading to unless I'm uploading to them at 3 KB/sec or more. That means I can't use lots of upload slots...or nobody would see my pathetic upload speed as worthy of returning the favor!

Lastly, the bandwidth priority (High, Normal, Low) is really handy to speed up 1 torrent at the expense of other/s. Sometimes I use it to speed up seeding because the only torrent I'm downloading is very slow anyway. Other times I want the torrents to download quick...and I'll worry about seeding them all 1:1 later. (Note: I seed almost everything to about 1.1:1.)

[chaosblade]

And what would you say to dial-up users? "Im sorry that you cant get or afford broadband, but get away from my swarm, you beggers!" ? Thats nice.

[Switeck]

Dial-up users need very conservative settings.

They only have ~5.5 KB/sec down and ~3.5 KB/sec (~4.5 KB/sec for v.92) up uncompressed bandwidth.

So they would be limited to 3 (or 4 for v.92) torrents at a time with uploads per torrent set to 1 and total upload bandwidth set to 3 (or 4) KB/sec.

Is that too bad?

They'd likely get considerably better results only doing 1 torrent at a time -- probably even reducing total upload bandwidth to only 1 or 2 KB/sec.

As-is, if they try to download 2 or more torrents at once they're likely going SLOWER overall than they would with just 1 torrent at a time.

Seeding is best left to broadband users, but if they wanted to seed or have to seed due to private tracker rules -- µTorrent already has a 'use alternate bandwidth' rate while only seeding.

I don't see the proposals here locking dial-up connections out of torrents.

[Klaus_1250]

And what would you say to dial-up users? "Im sorry that you cant get or afford broadband, but get away from my swarm, you beggers!" ? Thats nice.

No offence (again) but dial-up users shouldn't even try to use file-sharing. Dial-up connections are just not suitable for it and in most parts of the world, trying to use file-sharing with dial-up is considerably more expensive than low-end broadband.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to use file-sharing, but no, I don't want them sending me data if it is anything under 1KB/s.

3 torrents for a dialup-user??? They should never ever ever have more than 1 open! With a 5.5 KB/s downconnection, what on earth will you accomplish with 3 open torrents? Even the slowest torrents are 5KB/s+. Not to think of how much traffic Trackers and all overhead of connections eat up.

I also think that 1 uploadslot per torrent is going to give you crap performance. Is the BT-protocol even designed for that?

[chaosblade]

Even with one torrent, they would send at 2kB/s at best. You claim that this is useless anyway, So effectively, anyone who doesnt have a very large upload rate is not suitable for sharing or seeding in our case?

[Switeck]

There are BitComet/BitLord/BitSpirit/µTorrent users who for whatever reason are trying to download 10+ torrents at once with ONE KB/sec TOTAL upload bandwidth. Upload slots per torrent for them is usually left unchanged from 4, or if they think more is better they increase it to 10 or more each.

The 1-3 KB/sec upload bandwidth the dial-up user is offering is nearly 100 TIMES faster.

Even though others are saying the dial-up users upload speed is almost pointless versis the entire torrent's total upload speed, it is at least harmless compared to previously-mentioned users. The dial-up users are only offering 1 or 2 upload slots at 0.5-3 KB/sec not potentially 100's of upload slots at <0.01 KB/sec.

1 upload slot per torrent will likely give poor performance -- but with dial-up you only NEED 5 KB/sec in return to reach max download speeds. The BitTorrent Protocol will actually have a second upload slot open occassionally via optimistic unchoke to seek out the peer willing to upload to you the fastest. This means that upload speed per slot while both uploads are going will be only about 0.5-1.5 KB/sec -- but many peers will often upload back even if you're uploading to them slowly. They are also optimistically unchoking too! You're more likely to get your download bandwidth flooded than no results at all.

Over at the BitTornado forums, lots of people on broadband were often downloading torrents with their upload bandwidth set to 3 KB/sec and 2 upload slots (both are minimum values allowed by that program) -- then increasing those amounts to 10+ KB/sec and 4 upload slots when it finishes. Many expressed that on large torrents that was the "fastest" way to download.

[Firon]

µTorrent limits uncapped upload to 20 slots (in the betas at least), and capped upload it does cap / 3 to give you the slots. So someone with 9KB/s cap would only get 3 slots.

Of course, it doesn't stop users from running a ton of torrents and screwing it up, but it's better than nothing (ie what other clients do, absolutely nothing at all so dumb people can put in 20 ul slots with 10 kb/s upload)

[Klaus_1250]

@chaosbalde/switeck: I'm not saying dial-up users should be disallowed or are not usuable for seeding. I'm merely trying to point out that they don't fit the profile with which most p2p-systems and applications are designed.

I use a few private trackers, and I sometimes see people seeding at below 1KB/s (and that is probably with multiple uploadslots). That just plain awfull and shouldn't be allowed. Same goes for dial-up users trying to run more than one torrent or newbies trying to do bizarre things to increase their speeds. It's not about discriminating certain users, just make sure that no-one can do unreasonable things that hurt the swarm.